Month: December 2018

I’m posting this from a hotel in Joinville, Brazil while waiting to go to a meeting later this afternoon. Joinville is a city about a one hour flight from Sao Paulo and this is the second time we have been here this trip.

We landed in Sao Paulo late afternoon and went to a hotel near the airport for the night and the next morning took a 2 hour taxi ride to travel 16 miles to get to the other airport on the other side of the city. To say Sao Paulo has a traffic problem would be somewhat understating the situation. We made the flight and arrived in Joinville for the first time late afternoon and spent the evening walking around and finally having dinner. The next day we had an early morning meeting and at the conclusion we went back to the hotel and decided we would try to get an earlier flight out than the 7pm flight we had so we headed to the airport only to be told the earlier flight was booked so we had 7 hours in the airport. To give an idea of the size of the great Joinville airport here are gates 1 and 2 as seen from the world class restaurant where you buy your food by weight. (an all you can eat fill up your plate, have it weighed, pay and enjoy)

It should be noted that gates 1 and 2 are 100% of the gates at Joinville airport. Here is the flight we had hoped to be on arriving at gate #1.

Finally after 7 hours we took our 1 hour flight back to Sao Paulo and got to the hotel  in central Sao Paulo about 9 and had a dinner and bed.

Saturday morning was Mary’s birthday so we set out to do something. In this case it involved the subway to to the big market. 3 stops, a train change and 5 more stops got us within about 8 blocks of the market. What we didn’t realize was that those 8 blocks involved some kind of major shopping area for generally cheap products and the streets were closed to autos. This was because they were filled with about a bazillion Brazilions. After fighting our way through that we get to the market that is a huge building filled with fruit, fish and meat. Mary buys about $40 worth of fruit (although I think we got taken because we were foreigners and obviously didn’t know diddly). We left there and worked our way back to the hotel and dropped off the fruit and went back out. We were 1 block off Ave Paulista which is the major street in Sao Paulo. Center of banking and all other non poor things. (maybe similar like Park Ave in New York) We walked that and of course ended up in a big shopping center. I should note our suitcases are completely full and no room for anything else. So Mary needs to buy something and of course she can’t just buy something that could easily be squeezed into the suitcase, like say, a pair of underwear, she has to buy 2 pair of steel toed  oil rigger high top work boots that would require an entire suitcase on their own. Buy this time it was late afternoon and we needed food so we search around and find an Italian place within walking distance. Their menu states all items are sized for 2 so we had a meal for four between us as well as a bottle of wine. Here is said meal partway completed.

With all that food and wine that finished our day of any activity other than passed out in the hotel.

The next day (Sunday) we were up and on our way to the modern art museum by 10am as there was a Sunday antique sale that was to take place. What we discovered was Paulista had been closed off for about 2 mile and it appeared something was going on. We got to the museum and wondered thru the antique booths and Mary seemed to zero in on blue plates that matched in color the ones she has on the top of the kitchen cabinets. see one such booth here.

The blue plates we have are Christmas Plates my Mom would buy at Christmas during the late 60’s early 70’s for Polly, Lori and I. The were made by Bing and Grindle (Grundel, Gumball, I don’t know) aka B&G. Well at one of the last stalls a lady had 2 of these plates one from 1982 and one from 1987 so Mary had to buy them. Here is the transaction taking place.

After that high level negotiation some coconut water was needed.

What we figured out was that this was a weekly event. They close the street and craft and junk sellers, artists, and food guys set up booths all along the street (remember for a couple miles) and it becomes a day long street party.

Along with that are music guys. All kinds of music people set up and play all kinds of music. I will note that I don’t have pictures of the heavy metal band and the headbangers headbanging and I bang my head because I don’t because it was a real headbanger. This whole thing is called Domingo Na Paulista (Sunday on Paulista) They did have kind of a main stage here with some singing guitar playing woman.

There were random people holding their own little marching things.

There were a few of these drum clubs throughout the day.

After spending about 8 hours on Paulista we called it a day. The next morning we were off to the bus station for a 3 hour bus ride to Rio Claro in preparation for another meeting which we had on Tuesday morning. Had lunch at the Brazilian restaurant where they serve the grilled steaks (salt and fire) on a sword and carve it off as you eat. The next morning a bus ride back to Sao Paulo, a taxi ride across town to the airport and back to Joinville landing at gate #2 and here we are.

After our meeting today we fly back to Sao Paulo to catch a fight to Dubai to then catch a flight to Hong Kong and the next step of this big trip. More to come.